Winifred Knights was born in Streatham, London in 1899. She
studied at the Slade School of Fine Art (1915–17, 1918–20
and 1926–27) . In 1919 she jointly won the Slade Summer
Composition Competition with A Scene in a Village Street with
Mill-Hands Conversing. In 1920, she became the first woman to
win the Scholarship in Decorative Painting awarded by the British
School at Rome. She remained in Italy until December 1925,
marrying fellow Rome Scholar Thomas Monnington (1902–1976)
in April 1924. On her return to England, Knights received a
commission to paint an altarpiece for the Milner Memorial Chapel
in Canterbury. A major commission for the Earl of Crawford and
Balcarres, on which she had been working for five years, remained
unconcluded at her early death, aged 47. Throughout her life, Winifred Knights produced work
through which she explored women’s autonomy. Presenting
herself as the central protagonist,